Short glass-fiber-reinforced polymer composites are widely used in the automobile industry to replace some heavy metallic parts due to their lightweight, processibility, low-cost and ability to tailor their properties for different applications. However, high loadings of the glass-fibers which are used to impart great strength and stiffness to these composites result in reduced fracture toughness, thus limiting their use to only non-impact or low-impact applications.
One technique to improve fracture toughness or impact resistance of short glass-fiber-reinforced polymer composites is through chemical modification of polyamide. This suffers from drawbacks due to complexity of the chemical reactions involved.
In view of the above, there exists a need for an improved method to prepare fiber-reinforced polymer composites that addresses one or more of the above-mentioned problems.